Comeuppance

Big, grey-haired Andrew F. Schoeppel, the kind of do-little statesman whose name is likely to elude the most earnest followers of affairs in the U.S. Senate, got the floor one day last week to discuss statehood for Alaska and Hawaii. "I am somewhat reluctant," the senior Senator from Kansas began, ". . . to talk about matters that question or might impugn the loyalty of certain officials . . ." Then, quickly overcoming his reluctance, plodding, 55-year-old Republican Andy Schoeppel proceeded for the next two hours to impugn the loyalty of Secretary of Interior Oscar Chapman.

He had facts, said the Senator, which conclusively showed a "strong and personal alliance between the Russian Soviet cause and the present Secretary of the Interior, who is now urging Alaskan statehood . . ." Schoeppel wanted it clearly understood that he was not arguing against Hawaiian and Alaskan statehood (which President Truman urged Congress last week to approve before it quits for the year). But if he was for it, why was he raising the cry of Communism? Before

Andy Schoeppel got a chance to answer such questions--or to enjoy his press clippings--he got a rude comeuppance.

"Malicious & Irresponsible." Oscar Chapman, fighting-mad, rumbled into a klieg-lighted meeting of the Senate's Interior and Insular Affairs Committee two days later and confronted his accuser. "Senator Schoeppel's statement," said Chapman, ". . . can be dismissed as malicious and irresponsible . . . another instance of the use of the smear technique which has become the stock in trade of little men in high places." Its purpose, he declared, was a "last-ditch attempt to block statehood for Alaska" by suggesting that "my motives in advocating [it] are sinister and evil."

But this time the accuser was not going to get away with it. Chapman, who worked himself up to the Cabinet after 16 1/2 years in the Interior Department, gave the lie to each of Schoeppel's charges. He had never been a member of the American League Against War and Fascism, as Schoeppel had charged. He had withdrawn his support from the American-Soviet Friendship group a full year before it was declared a Communist front. He had attended a dinner given by the Southern Conference on Human Welfare, he was free to admit, but the organization had never been labeled subversive by the Attorney General. Furthermore, the honor guest at the dinner was Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black. Alben Barkley was Toastmaster and Harry Truman was an honorary vice-chairman.

"I Challenge You." Said Oscar Chapman to poker-faced Andy Schoeppel: "I challenge you and dare you to shed the cloak of immunity and sit here under oath . . . and repeat the speech." Andy Schoeppel calmly blew a smoke screen with his pipe, sat behind it and ducked the challenge.

His language may have been "a little strong," Schoeppel admitted. "The Secretary has been very forthright about this." But his Republican colleagues did not take ' the matter so calmly. After a closed meeting of the Senate's Republican Policy committee, Ohio's Robert Taft announced: "The . . . committee disavows all responsibility for Senator Schoeppel's charges. We are not going to bat for them and we are not going to get involved." Ex-Footballer Andy Schoeppel, who once won an All-America honorable mention at the University of Nebraska (1920-23), seemed to be playing in the wrong game.

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